


Haunt

by hostagesfic



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Coma, Dom/sub, Head Injury, Hospitals, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:13:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/pseuds/hostagesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There’s something inside him that’s holding on,” the voices say, out of the dark, and Harry wants to tell them that they’re so, so wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunt

**Author's Note:**

> Full list of warnings: Hospitals, assumed major injuries and medical conditions including implied head trauma, comas, and PTSD, D/s themes, unrequited love (resolved), negotiation of a polyamorous relationship, angst.
> 
> Major character injuries play a pivotal role in the plot of this fic. Please be aware that there are possible medical inaccuracies. Title from “Haunt” by Bastille. [[+extras](http://hostagesfic.tumblr.com/post/46486874423/haunt-ao3-harry-louis-zayn-harry-louis)]

Zayn’s face is too sharp to fit into the haze that Harry is seeing.

He stands out achingly, when everything else has gone soft, and Harry tries to say _why are you here_ but his mouth is miles away.

Maybe somewhere he’s still kissing Louis.

;

“He’s not going to wake up,” somebody says, and Harry opens his eyes. 

Everything is dark, but Harry knows that Zayn is there, close, in the blackness. He can feel him like the draw of a pole on a magnet. 

“Then I’ll stay until I fall asleep, too,” says Zayn.

Harry’s not asleep, but he can’t find the words to tell them.

;

Zayn left them because he needed to breathe, he said; needed to not live in a flat where he’d hear Liam come in late at night with another beautiful woman, needed to not grind himself into the dust in a dead-end job, needed to not infringe on whatever the fuck Harry and Louis would work out of themselves. _Needed to not deal with the fact that he fell in love with his three best friends, one of which was straight and two of whom were in a relationship_ , Louis said, bluntly, and Zayn had taken a taxi rather than let Harry drive him to the airport.

Zayn left and he went to New York for six months, and all Harry and Louis had were postcards and Skype calls to see that he’d been to Strawberry Fields and dyed his quiff back to black.

Zayn left, but now he’s here and Louis isn’t.

Harry doesn’t want to wake up.

;

When Louis turned twenty-one, he put Harry under for the first time. It was a gift, really, the best he got that year; Harry with a literal bow on his head, and Harry had been so proud and grateful that he’d slipped without more than Louis’ hand at the nape of his neck, his mouth full of warm praise and tongue against Harry’s throat. 

It never happened often, but it happened, after that, on weekends when Liam would visit family and Zayn would be working over time at the studio, or when they’d go to the bungalow for spring hols, and Harry remembers hands and knees for two days straight, and Louis’ approval like pure gold melting in his guts and turning him into solid art.

He would float, then, for hours that seemed endless, like summer condensed; heat and lazy sun and sweat at the small of his back. 

Sometimes, Harry would think that it must be what death was like, but Harry was wrong.

Death is nothing like what he and Louis played at together. _This_ is nothing like what he and Louis shared between them like the biggest secret in the world. 

He’s floating, but not in the clouds. He’s sunk deep in the pit of an ocean he cannot find a depth to, and there is no light, no warmth, no security, only a void that has dropped the stomach out of him and left him as empty as this endless sea.

Harry wishes it would end, even though he’s never wanted to die. But any eventuality is kinder than this present reality.

Harry used to hold on to the floating, clutch it to him like a treasure, a gift, but now he’d give anything to let it go. 

“There’s something inside him that’s holding on,” the voices say, out of the dark, and Harry wants to tell them that they’re so, so wrong.

 _Let me go,_ he wants to tell them.

_Let me go._

;

Liam visits him, some endless, invariable day. Zayn’s presence is muted, beside Harry, his white noise a softer buzz. 

Harry wants to shout at him, the things he never said before, _Why are you so afraid of him? Why do you let your feelings for him tear you apart?_ _Why can’t you be strong? Why do you always run?_

Liam has shrunk since Harry saw him, felt him, last. His shoulders are drawn in on themselves, a matching set to his eyebrows, the wrinkles of his forehead and the wrinkles in his clothes. Harry remembers him blowdrying his trainers, and wonders what happened, exactly, to Liam.

“Hey,” Liam says, tentatively. 

“Say hello to him, too,” Zayn says, and his voice is sharp, shredding the gauze in Harry’s head. He can almost find their outlines in the mist over his eyes.

“Hi,” Liam repeats, softer.

Harry knows it isn’t for him, and Zayn can tell too. 

“Don’t fucking say it like that,” he snaps. “Not like it’s a favor to me, like ‘oh, I’ll humor Zayn since he’s been sitting up for seventy-two hours and hasn’t eaten in a week and i’m worried and guilty because I haven’t been here since they arrived so I guess I’ll fucking say hello to the empty body on the cot.’ ”

“I’m sorry,” Liam says, “Zayn.”

“Just go,” Zayn tells him, “get out.”

When they’re alone, Zayn takes his hand, carefully arranges it on his chest. His fingers are cold, and Harry closes his eyes. “You’re not empty,” Zayn says.

Harry can’t tell him that he feels like it, especially when Zayn starts to cry.

;

Sometimes Zayn isn’t there, when Harry wakes up.

He’s not really awake, he knows this; it’s just another stage of consciousness, just another layer of brain activity, he hears the doctors say, and they’re not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but they tell Zayn it’s good.

Zayn isn’t fooled, but he pretends to be, and Harry hates that most of all; all of the lying that they’re all doing, for and with each other.

It’s like before, when Louis would make love to Harry and they’d both pretend not to be wondering what it would be like if there were another body in their bed, when Zayn would pretend not to watch them from the kitchen with hungry eyes, when Liam would pretend not to notice Zayn’s pain.

Harry is so, so tired of the lies, tired of the in betweens.

To be or not to be, but he isn’t either.

;

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” say the voices.

“You haven’t got any better ones,” Zayn points out. “Hey, Haz.” He settles into the space he’s carved out beside Harry in the darkness over the past eternity. Sometimes Harry pretends that they are stars who have blown out, and their bones are resting together in the black dead air of space, scars on the face of heaven. 

 _You were gone so long_ , he says, accusingly, and Zayn touches his arm gently. “I’m sorry, I know I’m late.” 

“We’re not sure-” say the voices, and Zayn cuts them off. “No, no. You got the approval, bring him in.”

 _Zayn_ , Harry says, suddenly afraid, and Zayn presses fingertips to his forehead, a kiss when lips can’t touch. “Harry,” Zayn replies. “You have to be gentle, he’s been sleeping for a while- but I need you to help me wake him up.”

;

Louis’ light has dimmed in the dark of this eternity, but Harry could recognize his warmth anywhere. 

Zayn’s hand is cold on his but Louis’ fingers are warm when Zayn brings them close to touch. “Please,” he whispers, and all the other voices have faded. “Please, please come back to me. I need you both, and I was wrong, I'm way more afraid of living without you than of trying to figure out how to live _with_ you.”

Zayn came back, and he brought Louis with him, and Harry feels alive for the first time.

;

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes- really, truly, this time, eyelids straining under the weight of the moment and the sleep that's been eating him up- is Louis looking back at him.

Zayn is perched on the side of his bed, his hands around their joined ones, and his eyes are damp. Harry's prickle in sympathy. 

"Hiya," says Louis. Harry thinks that it must have been a long time since Louis spoke last, because his voice is crusted and rough. It's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.

"Hi," Zayn whispers, and they both watch Harry. 

He can't speak.

He opens his mouth, forms the words- and they don't sound. They stick, clumsily, to his soft palate, cling to his teeth.

When Harry starts crying, Louis moves for the first time, his hand starting towards Harry's face. He's too weak to make it on his own, wrist trembling like a baby bird that's fallen, unable to fly, and Zayn leads him. 

Their fingers stroke Harry's useless throat, caress his wet cheeks. 

"It's okay," Zayn says, over and over. 

Harry knows it is. But he can't tell them that his tears aren't of sorrow.

They're of joy.

;

It's a month and a half before Zayn can take them home. 

Harry wanders the flat and feels like a ghost, feels more alive than he can ever remember being before. He stands in front of the mirror in their bathroom and runs his shaking hands through his shorn hair over and over again. They'd kept it shaved during his stay, and it looks stark, military, _sick_ , buzzed around his head like a fuzzy egg.

Harry is none of those things. Harry is-

They are _all-_ grateful.

;

Harry can't sleep without Zayn. In his dreams, he's back in the dark wasteland of his own mind, and without Zayn's familiar presence, he wakes up trembling, sweating, convinced he's still there. Louis tries to comfort him, but his warmth does not fill the space Zayn has left.

Harry missed him, the first time, when he went to New York; now he is conscious of his absence in an entirely new way. 

;

"Please," Harry hears Louis say. "We need you, that's not any different now." 

"You have to be sure," Zayn says, and his voice is soft but sounds like fear and hope and presence in the dark. Harry closes his eyes and pictures them, and opens his eyes and they're standing in front of him. He's never been more certain. He opens his mouth.

"We're sure."

;


End file.
